Light microscopy

Basic working principle

Light microscopy is a technique used to magnify small structures and specimens by providing an enlarged image of their interaction with visible light, for example; absorption, reflection, and scattering. Light microscopes consist of two main subsystems: an illumination system and an imaging system. The illumination system employs light sources such as halogen bulbs, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), or lasers to illuminate the sample. The light is collected by a condenser lens, shaped, and filtered before being focused onto the sample. The imaging system captures the light that has interacted with the sample and generates a magnified image for observation. This process involves an objective lens that gathers the light from the sample, as well as an ocular lens that transmits the collected light to the investigator's eye or a camera system. The schematic representation of a compound light microscope is depicted below.

Brightfield	Fluorescence

Phase contrast	Stereo